“Same ones that have been watching us since we rode in here,” Skanir answered. “They’re watching us right now.”
“I don’t see anyone,” Ottmar said, not quite keeping a note of uncertainty from his voice.
Skanir smiled back at the sergeant. “I don’t either. I also don’t see any crows. Ever know crows to keep away from a free meal without good reason?” He stared back at the shadowy windows and doorways. “They’re here all right. A dwarf knows when grobi are around.”
“Goblins,” Ottmar hissed. The soldier drew his sword, sweeping his eyes across the crumbling buildings.
“Keep calm,” Skanir growled. “They haven’t attacked us yet, which means there can’t be a lot of them. If you don’t provoke them, they’ll probably let us go. Grobi are all cowards at heart and all the steel we’re carrying isn’t going to make them any heartier.” The dwarf stroked his beard and sighed. “Much as it disgusts me, we can probably ride on out of here without a fight.”
Ernst thought about Skanir’s words. Was it his imagination, or did he see beady little eyes watching him from the shadowy hovels? He glanced back at the pile of severed heads. It sickened him to think about leaving the villagers unavenged, to leave them to rot beneath the sun. He also knew, however, that if Skanir was right, then even now they were in danger, standing in the eye of the storm. The longer they tarried, the greater the chances that the storm would break around them. His mission was more important than avenging a few hundred peasant farmers on a mob of greenskins. The fate of Wissenland had been entrusted to him.
“All right,” he told Skanir. Ernst looked over at Ottmar. “Sergeant, recall your men. We’re getting out of here.”
“You there!” Skanir suddenly yelled. “Get away from that!”
One of the soldiers who had dismounted had walked over to a wall, intent on examining one of the strange bundles of trash. Even as Skanir shouted to him, it was too late. The soldier reached down for the bundle. At that instant, a black-feathered arrow sprouted from his chest. Before he could fall to the ground, three more struck him.
“To arms!” the baron roared. “We are under attack!”
Scrawny, snarling shapes exploded into the square from every building. The marauders were only a little taller than Theodo, but there was a wiry strength in their wizened arms and a savage malice stamped on their sharp, toothy faces. The leathery hide that covered their bodies was varying shades of sickly green, and the cruel little eyes staring from their howling faces were leprous and cat-like. They wore tattered strips of armour and leather, the skins of rats and dogs, and necklaces of bone and sinew. Some sported rusty metal bucklers, the small shields perfectly sized to protect their diminished bodies. Wooden bowls and iron pots served some as helmets. Clenched in the hands of each goblin was some manner of blade or bludgeon, the sharpened hip bone of a goat serving alongside the rusty residue of a gladius. A few of them lingered in the shadowy doorways of the hovels, firing arrows from short bows strung with sinew.
Ernst spurred his horse into the shrieking horde of goblins, trampling the gruesome creatures under its hooves and slashing at them with his sword. A black arrow glanced from his breastplate, clattering across the stonework of the plaza. Others were not so lucky. The spotty goblin marksmanship had brought down two of Ottmar’s men, and Ernst could see at least half a dozen horses peppered with arrows.
Skanir gave voice to a fierce dwarf war cry, freeing his hammer and swinging it above his head. The goblins glared back at him, ancient hate overcoming their instinctive cowardice. A dozen of the snarling monsters scrambled across the square to confront him. Skanir swung a leg from the saddle of his mule, trying to free his boot from the stirrup. The brute pulled back in protest to the shift in weight and the clamour of battle. Skanir cursed the animal, trying to bring it under control so that he could quit the saddle. As he persisted, the mule reared back, throwing Skanir from its back. The dwarf crashed against the ground, his hammer falling from his fingers.
The dwarf rolled onto his side, ignoring the pounding throb of pain coursing through him. He could see the goblins still rushing towards him, their voices raised in savage laughter. Skanir hurriedly looked for his hammer, cursing when he saw it a few feet away, a slavering goblin standing over it. The goblin grinned at him and fingered its notched iron sword. Skanir scowled back. He wasn’t sure which was more humiliating: getting killed by a goblin or putting a mule in his book of grudges.
The rearmost portion of the column was still in the narrow dirt street when chaos engulfed the square. Taken by surprise, several men and horses were cut down when goblins suddenly erupted from the silent, brooding hovels. The frenzied monsters slashed at legs and punctured bellies, spilling mounts and riders into the narrow lane and springing on the fallen with abominable glee. The screams of man and animal mixed into a loathsome din with the merciless laughter of the goblins.
Kessler smashed the first goblin who sprang at him with his boot, mashing its face. The creature wilted into a little heap, choking on its own teeth. The swordsman tried to slash a second with his blade, but the greatsword was too big to wield effectively from the saddle. The goblin darted under the stamping hooves of his steed to open its belly with a bronze axe. The horse reared and screamed, trying to escape the slaughterhouse of the street. Kessler pulled one leg from the stirrup, and then freed the other. He had just dropped down from the saddle when his terrified steed stumbled on its own dangling entrails and crashed against one of the mud-brick walls, stoving it in. A thin shriek sounded as the animal fell, and Kessler only hoped it was the goblin who had killed his steed that had been crushed beneath it.
The swordsman felt a sharp bite of pain in his back, the warm trickle of blood running down his side. He spun around, splintering the short spear that had been stabbed into him with his sword. Before the goblin could retreat, Kessler reversed the stroke and brought the edge of his blade chopping through the creature’s hip. Almost severed in half, the dying greenskin flopped and writhed in the dust.
There were few men still standing within Kessler’s range of vision. He could see one of Eugen’s knights still holding his own against the attackers, the thick armour he wore and the heavy steel barding on his horse thwarting the efforts of the goblins’ ill-kept weapons. Carlinda and Kant were the centre of a strange island of calm amidst the carnage raging around them, the goblins apparently less than eager to close with the sinister servants of Morr, sensing the deathly aura they seemed to exude.
A bellowing roar caused Kessler to look away from the crone and her guard. The side of a building exploded in a cloud of dirt and plaster as something immense bulled its way through. As the dust settled, Kessler found himself looking at a mammoth bulk, twice as tall as a man, with long ape-like arms and thick, column-like legs. The entire shape was clothed in knobbly, scaly skin, slate-grey fading to leprous white on the stomach. The brute’s head was wide and squashed in appearance, almost devoid of any forehead at all. Great, floppy ears drooped from the sides of the monster’s skull, torn and tattered like a moth-eaten rug. Small, pitch-black eyes glowered from either side of a huge crooked nose. Beneath the nose, a fanged canyon of a mouth gaped wide.
Beside the horror, a hook-nosed goblin shrieked, gesturing madly with what looked like a cattle goad. Kessler felt his spine crawl when the goblin locked eyes with him. The greenskin’s face spread in a maniacal grin, jabbing the immense brute beside it with the goad. Slowly the troll’s head swung around, the idiot fury in the monster’s eyes training on the swordsman.
The brute took one ponderous step that Kessler was certain shook the entire street. Goblins scattered before its advance, scarcely willing to trust their lives to the troll’s capacity to distinguish friend from food. Another quaking step and Kessler could see the enormous claws that tipped each of the troll’s boulder-like hands. He braced his feet, tightening his grip on his greatsword. The troll didn’t react to his defiance, but kept lumbering forwards.
Suddenly,
the troll stopped, turning its head to stare at the street behind it. Only a few goblins continued to harass the beleaguered knight, but the troll looked past them. Its interest appeared to focus on Carlinda and the Black Guardsman. The goblin with the goad didn’t appreciate the troll’s distraction, screaming at the brute and jabbing it savagely with the goad. The troll swung back around, its dull eyes staring at Kessler for a moment. Then it looked down at the goblin. With surprising speed, the troll’s claw closed around the goad. The goblin squealed in horror as the troll lifted it into the air, never thinking to release the weapon in its hands. The troll stared at the shrieking goblin, and then stuffed both goad and greenskin into its craggy maw. The goblin’s screams were silenced by a sickening crunch as the troll’s jaws ground together in a sidewise, cud-chewing motion.
With the goblin herdsman gone, the troll turned its back on Kessler and began to lumber off. Whatever relief the swordsman felt vanished when he realised where the troll was going. The strange, deathly aura that surrounded Carlinda might have repulsed the goblins, but it was attracting the troll. Scavenging carrion-eater as much as it was predator, the troll was no stranger to the touch of death, but in its tiny brain death equated to food. The monster’s mouth dropped open in a hungry groan, dislodging the half-chewed carcass of the goblin. The goblins around the mounted knight scrambled like rats as they saw their mangled comrade fall from the troll’s jaws, darting through doors and leaping through windows.
Freed from the goblins, the knight turned to arrest the troll’s advance. His horse whinnied in protest as he urged it to charge the monster. Finally, his persistence prevailed and the knight drove against the troll’s side, slashing it ruthlessly with his sword. The troll took a few more steps before becoming aware of the deep, hideous wounds the knight’s sword had gouged into its scaly flesh. With a deafening roar, the troll turned on the man, bringing a mallet-like fist smashing down. The force of the blow collapsed the man’s neck, causing his head to sink sickeningly into his shoulders. The lifeless corpse flopped across the saddle as his horse bolted up the winding street. The troll’s body shook as a satisfied belch rumbled up from its belly, and then it turned and started towards Carlinda and Kant once more.
As the knight’s horse ran past him, Kessler lunged down the street, rushing the troll from behind. He used his momentum to help drive his greatsword into the monster’s back, thrusting it through the troll’s armoured hide like a harpoon. The blade transfixed the monster, the point erupting from its belly in a spray of acidic juices.
The troll took another ponderous step, dragging Kessler and his sword with it. The champion fought to free his blade, worrying it from side to side in the wound. The troll moved again, still taking no notice of the hideous injury Kessler had dealt it. Then, abruptly, it threw back its head, giving voice to an ear-splitting bellow of pain. Kessler’s sword was torn from his grasp as the maddened brute turned on him. The monster slashed at him with its claw, hurling him from his feet. Kessler landed twenty feet up the road, the carcass of a goblin only partially cushioning his fall. The swordsman struggled to rid his vision of the flashing sparks that filled it. He willed his body up, but the shocked, bruised flesh refused to listen, stubbornly content to lie sprawled in the street.
The troll lurched back up the street after him, anger in its dull little eyes. Then it stopped, glancing down at the sword sticking out of its belly. The troll jabbed a taloned finger at the steel protruding from its stomach, a confused look replacing the rage that had contorted its face a moment before. With an almost human shrug, the monster dismissed both the weapon and the man who had put it there. A black, slug-like tongue slavered across its scaly lips and the creature plodded back towards the crone and the promise of food.
Kessler tried desperately to force his body to obey him, frantic to stop the troll. He could see the Black Guardsman move his horse forward, placing himself directly between the troll and its prey. Kant looked back at Carlinda. Kessler thought he heard the templar say “Don’t,” and then, “He might find you.”
Then the troll was upon him. The templar’s horse was a finely trained destrier, but even the fine warhorse could not control its instinctive fear of an abomination like the troll. The horse struggled to back away from the monster, foiling Kant’s efforts to close with it. The troll was not so timid. Snarling, the brute lunged at the templar, its gigantic claws slashing through his destrier’s neck. The horse reared back, a liquid scream bubbling from its ruined frame. With only one hand on the reins, Kant was ill-prepared for his steed’s violent agony. He was thrown into the street, landing in a clatter of armour and dust.
The troll stared down at the Black Guardsman, a cruel intelligence briefly asserting itself in the monster’s dull, idiot gaze. As Kant struggled to lift himself from the ground, the troll brought its massive foot stomping down. The foot smashed into the templar with the force of an avalanche, smashing flat both the helm and the skull within. The troll watched Kant’s body twitch as life drained out of it, and then turned its hungry eyes towards Carlinda. A rope of drool slithered down the brute’s face as it started to move once more.
Kessler shouted for the woman to run, to flee. Her horse had already started to become agitated, mimicking the panic that had thrown Kant at the troll’s feet. Carlinda heard him, but instead of trying to move, she closed her eyes and folded her hands across her chest. Kessler could see her lips moving, but whatever she was saying was too low for him to hear. The swordsman struggled again to rise, roaring at his own feebleness. He grabbed a rusty goblin helmet from the ground beside him and threw it at the troll, trying to distract the monster, yelling at it to get its attention, but the brute kept plodding on.
Just as Kessler abandoned hope, something nearly as enormous as the troll hurtled down the street, the hovels shaking as Ghrum charged past them. A gigantic sword was clenched in the ogre’s fist, a blade so enormous that it made Kessler’s greatsword look like a boning knife. The ogre rushed at the troll, lifting his huge sword and bringing it slashing down into the monster’s shoulder. The keen edge cleaved through flesh and bone like a butcher’s knife and the troll’s arm plopped to the ground, scrabbling in the dirt with spastic motions.
The troll stared stupidly at its severed limb, and then shifted its gaze to the ogre. Ghrum sneered at the monster. “Hey, ugly,” the ogre roared. “You want fight, fight Ghrum!” He brought his sword slashing at the troll once more. Instead of backing away, the beast lunged forward, clawing at Ghrum with its remaining arm, snapping at him with its powerful jaws. Kessler watched in horror as the troll’s teeth dug into the ogre’s neck, dark blood gushing from the wound. More hideous still, the wounds the knight had chopped into the troll’s side had closed, without even a scab to mark where they had been. Kessler shifted his gaze to the stump of the troll’s shoulder, sickened to see that it was no longer spurting gore but instead appeared to have a bulb of new flesh growing from it.
Ghrum howled in pain as the troll’s teeth bit into his flesh. He dropped his sword, closing both hands around the monster’s head. Slowly, agonisingly, he forced the head back. With a wet, meaty sound, the troll’s fangs tore free of Ghrum’s neck. The ogre kept his hands locked around the gruesome head, struggling to ignore the blood gushing from his wound. The troll glared at him, spitting corrosive bile at Ghrum’s face. The acidic filth sprayed the ground behind him, sizzling as it dissolved the dirt. Ghrum clenched his jaw, straining his muscles against the troll’s resistance. By degrees, he forced the monster’s head to turn, and then, with a roar more primal than even the troll’s bestial bellows, he snapped its neck. The brute’s body struggled against the ogre for several more minutes before accepting that it was indeed dead. The scaly body went limp and crashed to the ground with all the grace of felled timber.
The ogre closed a hand on his wound, pressing it tight. He staggered against the closest wall, collapsing it as he put his weight against it. Several goblins scampered from the ruptured building, but what
ever fight had been in them was already gone and they retreated down the road. A frantic cry brought Kessler’s attention away from the fallen ogre. Theodo came sprinting down the street, displaying a surprising agility for someone of his girth. A slender dagger was in his hand and the halfling had thrown a coil of thin rope over his shoulder. He hastened to the collapsed building, picking his way to the ogre beneath.
Kessler forgot them as he watched Carlinda dismount. The woman started to walk up the street, pausing where the halfling tended to Ghrum until Theodo’s furious shouts made her turn away. She looked up at Kessler, holding his gaze as she strode towards him.
“Looks like that monster finished me after all,” Kessler said as Carlinda knelt beside him. Her cold, smooth hands pulled at his armour, probing the flesh beneath. She shook her head.
“The Sisterhood of Shallya are not the only ones versed in the healing arts,” she said.
Whatever retort was on Kessler’s lips vanished in a grunt of pain as her probing fingers found a tender spot. Kessler shut his eyes as sparks started to flash before them once more. “Sounds like the fight’s over,” he said through clenched teeth. The crash of arms and the screams of the injured had faded away from further up the street. “I wonder which side won.” He winced as another spasm of pain seared through him.
Carlinda looked down at him, frowning. She laid a hand on the side of his face. “If you wake up alive, you’ll know it was our side.”
Kessler felt a slight pressure against his head, and then everything vanished into darkness.
The men carefully made their way through the gore-splattered square. Goblin bodies were strewn alongside butchered horses and the decaying carcasses of the people that had once called the village home. Here and there, they found a fresher corpse, a victim of the blades and bows of the goblins. When these were discovered, a cry of excitement rose from the men. They fell upon the corpses like wolves, tearing off boots and clothes, and scavenging weapons and armour. Like wolves, they snarled and snapped at one another.
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